She glanced at him and caught her breath. The priest shook his head.
“Why not? Because you are too charitable?” she whispered; and again he shook his head. “Then, why not?” she persisted with a strange pertinacity.
“Because he is your brother, mademoiselle.”
And they stood for some moments looking out over the sea, through the rime-covered windows, in a breathless silence. The cure spoke at length.
“You must get him removed to Havre,” he said, in his cheery way, “as soon as possible. There he can take a steamer to America. I will impress upon the doctor the necessity of an early departure.”
It was not lately, but many years ago, that the Ocean Waif was wrecked in a summer storm. And any who penetrate to Yport to-day will probably see in the sunlight on the sea-wall a cheery little cure, who taps his snuff-box, while he exchanges jokes with the idlers there. Yport has slowly crept into the ken of the traveller, and every summer sees English tourists pass that way. They are not popular with the rough natives, who, after all, are of the same ancestry as ourselves; but the little cure is quick and kind with information or assistance to all who seek it. When the English tongue is spoken he draws near and listens—snuff-box in hand; when the travellers speak in French his eyes travel out to sea with a queer look, as if the accent aroused some memory.
And in an obscure English watering-place there lives a queer little old maid—churchy and prim—who does charitable work, gives her opinion very freely concerning the administration of matters parochial, thinks the vicar very self-indulgent and idle—and in her own heart has the abiding conviction that there are none on earth like the Roman clergy.
“GOLOSSA-A-L”
“Golossa-a-l!” I heard him say. “Golossa-a-l, these Englishmen! Are they not everywhere?”